Finally an End to the Racist Soup Kitchens

As a result of the closures, hundreds of homeless people will go hungry. The groups giving out the soup say it is nothing more than traditional French cuisine.

Angry protesters retort, however, that they are deliberately offering ham sandwiches and soup made of pork to discriminate against Muslims and Jews who cannot eat the meat for religious reasons. The groups behind the soup kitchens are not formally linked, but they are associated with an ultra Right-wing organisation called Bloc Identitaire.

Officials say the groups are not breaking the law. In Strasbourg and Nice, however, food handouts have been banned on the grounds that they could lead to “public disorder”.

In Paris, police have stopped the serving of pork soup at major stations on “administrative grounds” – because the soup kitchens have not got the correct papers – to avoid racial tensions. Fabienne Keller, the Mayor of Strasbourg, said: “Schemes with racial subtexts must be denounced.”